From humble origins, the Lamar Dodd School of Art has developed into one of the most vibrant and comprehensive art departments in the US. Currently, it has approximately 50 faculty teaching in a wide variety of disciplines within the fields of art, art history and art education. Its facilities consist of several buildings: a 172,000 sq. ft. eco-conscious building located on East Campus, a stand-alone facility devoted to ceramics adjacent to the main building, the Thomas Street Art Complex which houses both sculpture and jewelry & metalwork, the Broad Street Studios, which house the interior design program, and the Athenaeum, a 5000 sq. ft. contemporary art venue. With over 1,000 art students and over 45 full time faculty, the School of Art is dedicated to providing the highest level of instruction in studio art, design, art education, and art history.

Although this is an apt description of the School now, this is hardly where the department began. Founded in 1927, the School of Art has a long history, and it begins not with modern art or the vitalizing force of Lamar Dodd, but with the now out-dated discipline of "home economics," which served as the first umbrella for the university’s initial offerings in drawing and design, as well as watercolor painting, pottery, and history & art appreciation.

However, as courses in the fine arts accrued, a Fine Arts Chair and department were established. Mildred Pierce Ledford, the department’s inaugural chair, received her Bachelor of Science degree in Education from the University of Oklahoma and a diploma in Fine and Applied Arts from Pratt Institute in New York. Ledford, whose college education set her apart from the majority of female art teachers on college campuses in the United States at that time, taught a variety of courses including those that offered instruction in batik, weaving, metalwork, basketry, block printing fabrics, as well as art history and appreciation. It was Ledford and other female professors who laid the foundations for what would become the Department of Art[1].

In 1937, as part of a national movement to put working artists into universities, painter Lamar Dodd was appointed to the faculty of the University of Georgia. The following year he was made the department head, and in 1939, he was promoted to the rank of full professor. In time, Dodd consolidated all curricula engaged with the visual arts into one department and enrolled the department’s first graduate students[2]. Dodd is generally credited with establishing the school’s reputation as one of the nation’s premiere art departments, enviable for both the breadth of its curricula and the accomplishments of its faculty, whose numbers grew exponentially under his decades-long leadership.

  

A champion of modernism in all media, Dodd is also credited with overseeing the completion of a new art department building on Jackson Street. Dedicated on January 21, 1963, this striking, 53,000 sq ft. modernist building was designed by Atlanta architect Joseph Amisano to symbolize the creative energy and artistic vision of the department. Locally derided as the “Ice Plant” for its glass walls, high vaulted ceilings, and geometric lines, it won national awards for innovative design and was, for five decades, a training ground for thousands of aspiring artists, designers, and teachers. Still in operation, it is now home to the College of Environment + Design[3].

Among other important advancements, Dodd also established the first of several UGA foreign residence programs that have become central to the teaching, research, and outreach missions of the University. Founded in 1970 by sculptor and professor Jack Kehoe, the Studies Abroad program in Cortona, Italy has been hosting students from UGA and other institutions continuously since its inception.  Additionally, Dodd instituted a robust program of guest lecturers, as well as the the Lamar Dodd Professorial Chair, a short-term appointment of high distinction intended to honor artists of international standing who have achieved an extraordinary record of exhibition. Artists who have held this position include Elaine de Kooning, Mel Chin, Willie Cole, Kota Ezawa, Luis Cruz Azaceta, Lola Brooks, Paul Pfeiffer, Lauren Fensterstock, and Trevor Paglen among others. The Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture Series and the Lamar Dodd Professorial Chair remain essential aspects of the School of Art today. Lamar Dodd remained the head of the School of Art until his retirement in 1973. The school was renamed the Lamar Dodd School of Art in a dedication ceremony in 1996, just months before Dodd's death later that year.

In the years since, Dodd’s role in the completion of the Stone Mountain Memorial has become a subject of controversy[4]. In the late 1950s, while serving as department chair, Dodd was hired by the Stone Mountain Memorial Association to form a selection committee for the completion of the Stone Mountain confederate monument near Atlanta. In this capacity, Dodd solicited prominent members from various art institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art to serve on this committee. Together, they selected a design that was later overruled when Georgia citizens were given an opportunity for public comment. The public deemed the committee’s selection too modern and preferred the completion of the original carving on the mountain’s face. Lamar Dodd’s communications on the matter were both to rebuke the various criticisms of his committee in the press and to underscore his feeling that further carving into the mountain would ruin its natural beauty[5].

 

It is also worth noting that Lamar Dodd presided over the School of Art throughout desegregation. In 1961, most faculty members of the art department signed a resolution supporting desegregation and condemning the actions of rioters seeking to prevent desegregation. Darlyne Killian was one of the first Black students to pursue graduate study at UGA, and was the first Black student to graduate with a degree in the visual arts. She obtained an MA in Art History in 1968. She and Dodd maintained a warm correspondence throughout her career[6].

 

Vanessa Hay, “Athens Music Family Tree,” Georgia Music Hall of Fame Collection, ms3837, Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, The University of Georgia Libraries.

 

Through the course of the 70s and 80’s, the art department had a number of directors who together oversaw the department’s continued vitality, as evidenced by the pivotal role it played in Athens' famous music scene. Students of the School of Art in this period include: Love Tractor’s Mark Cline, R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, Side Effect’s Jimmy Ellison, Boat Of’s Carol Levy, and all four members of Pylon.  Likewise, the US Artist Collective, a predominately African American student-founded collective that served to make visible the works of artists underrepresented at the University of Georgia, was founded at the School of Art in 1988. They were reunited at a show at the Lyndon House Art Center in 2018[7].

 

In 1998, Carmon Colangelo became the School’s director, and like Dodd before him, his legacy would also be partially tied to a new facility for the School. In 2008, a new 172,000-square-foot facility with modern studios, lecture halls, galleries, and a media center opened on the university's east campus near the Georgia Museum of Art, the School of Music, and the Performing Arts Center. This light-filled, capacious building on east campus reunited many of the formerly isolated areas of study and serves today as the central space for the creative energies of the School of Art. It also houses a dedicated Art Library, which, as a branch of the larger University of Georgia library system, facilitates greater engagement by students and faculty with digital and physical library collections, enhancing research and coursework across our community.

 

 

The most recent addition to the School of Art is the Athenaeum, a contemporary arts space on Broad Street in downtown Athens, which opened in September 2021. Designed to showcase the work of internationally and nationally acclaimed artists, it is the largest contemporary art space in the city and will function as a dynamic cultural destination, accessible to all of Athens citizens and visitors. Although newly instituted, it continues the School’s long-standing mission to put art, art education, design, and art history at the center of UGA, Athens, and the state of Georgia.

 

Accreditation

The University of Georgia is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award Associate, Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral degrees and is Accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design.

 

*Last updated Fall 2021